Russia Starts Registering Cyrillic Domain Names

Russia has started registering domains in Cyrillic. Россия.рф is the first one of them. New names have started appearing in the Cyrillic zone of the Russian Internet very quickly. Recent registrations include such websites as секс.рф (sex.rf), стриптиз.рф (stripterase.rf), ипотека.рф (mortgage.rf) and others, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote.

The priority registration of domain names in the new zone started on November 25. State organizations and trademark owners were given the right to register their domains first. The people, who claimed their rights for such trademarks as “cinema” and “sex”, have appeared too.

A company that established its rights on the Cyrillic sex.rf domain had the “sex” trademark registered in the group of such goods as women’s bags, beach bags and suitcases. The Cyrillic “cinema” trademark was registered in the group of water heaters and lanterns.

The cost of .ru premium domains on the secondary market is about $10,000. There are more expensive domains too. The casino.ru domain, for instance, was sold last year for $235,000. It is hard to forecast the cost of the new Cyrillic domains – they are not available yet.

The names of Russian politicians in the new .рф Cyrillic zone will be reserved in the first place. Medvedev.rf (Медведев .рф) and Putin.rf ( Путин .рф ) will not go anywhere outside the Kremlin. Governmental agencies will register many other state-related Cyrillic domains, such as president.rf, premier.rf, kremlin.rf and others.

The reservation of domain names for the needs of state agencies and trademark owners will continue before March 25, 2010. The open registration of domain names will start in the summer of 2010.